Fun Facts

After I graduated from the University of Colorado, in my home town Boulder, I spent several months in Botswana in Southern Africa. While I was there I studied the endangered painted wolf. This involved tracking them, sitting for hours in the bush watching the dogs sleep, and occasionally being chased by an elephant.

I enjoy the outdoors and try to spend as much time hiking and enjoying nature as I can. I haven't quite yet acclimated myself to the bay area, but I am trying to learn some of the p

About Me

I am a graduate student at San Francisco State University, working on my Masters in Biology. My work is primarily on insect herbivores and I ultimately intend to go on to a PhD.

My tutoring experience lies primarily at the college level, especially in biology. I have taught a few classes at SFSU, including a couple types of intro biology and some bio-statistics. I have also worked as a tutor at Front Range Community College in Colorado, where I worked with nursing students. I also have also tutored primary school students in math.

My tutoring style varies depending on the student and topic being addressed. The most important aspect is coming to understand the student, their learning style, and level of understanding then tailoring my style to that. In general, for biology and other physical sciences, I like to capture the students attention with a peculiar phenomena and then leading them to see how this is a consequence of a particular concept. For math, on the other hand, the approach is like learning to ride a bike, where you repeat a method with less and less support until the student finds themselves able to work the problem on their own.

It is my belief that learning and memorization come most easily from understanding. If you don't understand something, then it is quite difficult to memorize it. If you try to begin with understanding, then memorization comes naturally.